


all my casualties of love

by smithens



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Flirting, Getting to Know Each Other, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Playing Fast and Loose With The Architecture of Highclere Castle, Relationship History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24333505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Thomas has a history of taking every chance he's given and then some.Until now.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Other Male Character(s), Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 27
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from [aly & aj's "church"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZniK0Im0JpE)
> 
> i don't really have any excuses for [publishing another wip](https://combeferre.tumblr.com/post/615577227573280768) when i have (counts on fingers) eleven already but in my defense i really do always think i'll get them finished in the next week or so after posting the first chapter. obviously it very rarely happens this way but it's the thought that counts. anyway i do think i'll be able to complete this one shortly based on where i'm at with chapter 2 atm but don't hold me to that

"...but I don't suppose he ever showed you the roof of Buckingham Palace," Thomas was saying.

"You'd be right there."

...and he offered his hand to Ellis ( _Richard,_ his name was Richard, Richard 'Yeah, Nobody Calls Me That Except My Mum' Ellis because he had a fucking _nickname_ ), who accepted it. His grip was steady; Thomas hoisted him up with ease. They'd gone (or he had, at least) to such lengths to avoid touching each other for most of the week, and now he was taking every chance he was given and then some.

"Stronger than you look," said Richard. 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His voice was biting, and the words fell off of his tongue too easily. 

The man he was with was the last person he knew who could be expected to mean _anything else_ by such a remark, but that didn't stop him from feeling _cornered,_ knots from forming in his lungs and blood from rushing in his veins.

But if he didn't mean that, why had he said it in the first place?

Heart pounding, Thomas checked the lock of the hatch and then propped it open anyway—enough to be safe, not enough that anybody in the passage would notice. Though he could feel, somehow, that Richard was looking at him, he told himself he wouldn't look back.

He took his sweet time before saying anything, too. Thomas didn't think it was because he was hesitating so much as that he was observing, scrutinizing. He had a way about him that made him feel cut open and turned inside out—since the very first day. Before he'd known or even suspected. And it had been easy, then, to brush everything off his shoulders; he'd gotten away with a lot for being witty, but he wasn't getting away with anything now and he hadn't done since walking out of the police station.

Even if it wasn't _technically_ his first impression, it may as well have been, and as far as those go he really could have given Richard a better one.

"That I haven't seen enough of you to draw the right conclusions, Mr Barrow."

Words he didn't know what to make of.

They sat. There was a proper space for it, which Thomas had never quite figured out the purpose of—something to do with the fire brigade, probably, that explained a lot of odd things where the building was concerned—but also never complained about.

He hadn't been up here since the war.

Years and years ago. Doing it now made him start to remember some things he would have rather kept locked up and left to gather dust in the back of his head.

When he gave in, he saw that Richard was gazing at him with raised eyebrows and a slight smile. "You still smoke?"

He had a way of asking questions that was different from how anybody else did. As if he knew what your answer would be before you gave it, and was only asking to be polite.

This one, especially. Normally that question didn't have the word _still_ in it.

"Good guess," Thomas said, cautious.

"Didn't know when it was the last time you were out of livery," said Richard, wry. He gave a nod toward him, eyes at his chest, and it was peculiar to know he was looking at him but not at his face. "Whatever valet figures out how to get cigarette smoke out of wool for good will be a wealthy man." 

"It'll be a valet, will it?"

"Or a wife."

Something in Thomas stuttered.

Richard was grinning now, properly. When he finally looked away, Thomas followed his gaze: out, beyond the towers, toward the quarter-moon. 

It was as dark as it was going to get for the night.

"...I do, yes."

"Would it be terribly unwise if we did now?"

Well, if they were going to burn down the Abbey, now would be the most interesting time to do it… 

"Have done before."

"You bring every bloke up here, or just me?"

"I think you know that there hasn't been anybody but you for a long time."

Or else he hadn't been listening.

Beside him Richard lit a cigarette, and Thomas watched as he did it. There was nothing special about the way he put it in his mouth or held his lighter, nothing different about the click of the flame or the hollow of his cheek. There couldn't have been.

But he _felt_ like there was.

It was captivating.

After one inhale Richard took the thing out of his mouth and looked at it.

And then he looked at him.

When he offered, Thomas took. His hands felt like they were shaking, but they didn't appear to be.

Breathing in settled his nerves; knowing that Richard was _staring_ undid it.

He made no move to light another, and so Thomas passed it back. "So," he said, and he swallowed.

"So," repeated Richard. Thomas couldn't help but stare at his lips. That half-smile was back on his face. 

It hadn't left it, really. For the past hour or so he'd been either grinning, smiling or whatever-this-was: Thomas hadn't seen him stern since he'd asked all of those stupid questions at the police station. It had been so easy to talk in the car, when he could look all he liked and Richard had kept his gaze forward (with good reason), but now it was like the man was making up for the lost time by never taking his eyes off of him at all.

Their knees were touching.

Funny how after all they'd gotten up to on the drive back that was the thing that was making his heart beat the way it was.

"Who was the latest?"

"Of the chaps I've sat on the roof with?"

"Was thinking in more general terms," said Richard. He handed Thomas the cigarette again. "But yeah, let's start there, shall we?"

Smoke rolled out of his mouth as easy as words did… this shouldn't have felt so intimate, them just sitting there with their legs together putting their mouth on the same thing, but it had his heart racing and his stomach full of butterflies.

"Shall we," repeated Thomas, raising his eyebrows. 

"Told you a fair bit as pertains to myself, haven't I?"

And he most certainly had. He'd gotten up to things in his life, Mr Ellis, and Thomas didn't have nearly as much to say for himself as he did — he'd already _given him_ the general terms, told him he'd not had much else but flings in recent years, said he'd been lonely, and that was all true. It got the point across. He didn't need to try to knock it into his skull on top of it. What he did need was to hear what life was like for somebody else, to know that not everybody like him lived like he did. It made him terribly, terribly envious, but it also made him hopeful in a way he'd never been before. Chatting about it all meant more to Thomas than he'd ever have imagined it could, but he wasn't so foolish as to think it meant the same to Richard. Yes, he'd been missing out on everything the world — _their_ world, what little there was of it — had to offer men like them, but in the end it was all his own fault, wasn't it? Why should that be enough to make it mean something to somebody who was clearly more worldly wise than he was ever going to be again?

Damaged goods, that was what it was about.

As if this wasn't going to be just a fling in the end anyway same as all the rest.

"'S been a long time since I was up here," he said eventually. He did used to be worldly, at least where all of this was concerned. It was too long ago to mean anything. This evening he'd been daft, and then he'd been lucky. It never would have happened like that when he was a young man… but he wasn't young anymore, was he? "And the last time I can remember, it wasn't with a bloke."

"No?" said Richard.

Thomas shook his head.

He took as slow and long a drag as he could manage before passing it back over.

It spoke well of Richard that though he seemed to be more than capable of driving a bloke up the wall— _the good fairy came down on a moonbeam,_ bloody hell—he didn't do it every single time he had a chance. Never having cared to, Thomas had never learned how to manage with not setting people off, and figuring it out in recent years (he'd had to, because he was more grown up and adult than he'd ever properly managed to be before, with more responsibility, and all that meant he had to try to heal without wounding other people in the process) hadn't been very easy. And the way he saw things, he still wasn't any good at it.

Lucky for him that Richard had found his behaviour interesting and not off-putting.

That was what he'd said in the car. Interesting.

It was an odd thing to be. There was a time once when he'd have liked it, but the problem now was he didn't see anything sure in the word. He'd have preferred to be thought of as attractive, or clever, or some other thing that didn't require very much thinking to make it work. Likeable, even. Charming. Not that he'd ever done anything worthy of either of those, but even so, _interesting_ didn't count for much, in his book. All it really had in its favour was that it was better than being _boring_.

"Should I feel very special, then?"

"If you like."

Special.

He'd've preferred to be that.

Richard certainly was. Even if he'd been joking, which Thomas suspected.

He'd stuck his neck out in a way that nobody else ever had or would do in the future. That was special.

"Do you really want to know?" asked Thomas. "About who I've been with?"

"Wouldn't mind it, no."

"I just don't see how it's any concern of yours."

"Well, if you like I'll mind my own business," began Richard, lofty, "but I reckon it's only fair, isn't it?"

It was.

He could admit that, at least.

"I wasn't joking when I said I hadn't really had anything, you know that?"

Richard set his hand on his knee, and Thomas almost jumped out of his skin. It only made him chuckle. "I do," he said. "Only I don't entirely agree with you, Mr Barrow..."

Speaking as if he had all the information necessary to come to such a conclusion.

"...what are the odds tonight was the first time you went off with a man on a lark, I wonder."

His cheeks got warm.

Admittedly, he didn't mind him touching, but he didn't need to do it and then say things like that at the same bloody time.

"Doesn't count."

"It all counts," returned Richard. "Men like you and I take what we can get."

"Easy for you to say," Thomas snapped, "when you can get all you like, living in bloody London and working in the _Royal Household_ – "

"Not _all_ I like."

Thomas shut his mouth.

Hopefully he'd done it before he could do any more damage, but going by the look on his face...

Richard pulled his hand away, and when he spoke it was too careful, the words placed just so: "I'm rather out of luck if I want anything more than that, Mr Barrow."

"Thomas," Thomas said, impulsively.

He'd done damage enough; he could tell.

Richard quirked an eyebrow. He didn't correct himself, but he passed the cigarette back over. An olive branch, even though it wasn't his place to be giving one.

He took it, though.

Good for his nerves.

"Sorry," Thomas murmured. He watched the smoke disperse into the night air as he exhaled, then hung his head and looked at his knees, where Richard had touched him.

"You're all right."

"I'm not." He swallowed. "Don't know why I…"

"We've all got thoughts it's best to keep unsaid," said Richard mildly. "But that hardly means we never say them."

"Not used to this."

"Yeah, I got that impression."

Of course he had.

"You had – look, I – I don't have stories, like you," Thomas said, fumbling around for the right words even as they left his mouth. Stupid. "I don't have…"

Well, his past was _interesting_ , maybe, but he didn't want to be a specimen, something to make a study of, he wanted to be… 

"Whatever you'd like to share is enough, Thomas," murmured Richard. He accepted the smoke when Thomas offered it back: his own olive branch. His job to ask for forgiveness. 

But he only took from it once before setting his elbow at his knee and leaning over, thoughtful. "The thing of it is, anything can be a story if you tell it the right way," he added, turning to look at him over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows. Thomas felt his heart flip over. "Can't it?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what'd i say...... foolish me, thinking i could finish this in two chapters....... this is like half the length of the first one because i had to go snip-snip-snip with scissors @ the 2nd chapter, so. the next one will Probably be pretty long.
> 
> references to Events in s3 & s5 in this one.

The kiss broke just at the moment when Thomas let his hand get too far up Richard's thigh.

Served him right.

But though Richard stopped him and drew away, he had a smile in his eyes. "Right," he said, "if you thought I'd forgotten you are mistaken, Mr Barrow—how long's it been, then?" Even if he was teasing, his voice had gone all soft and gentle. Treating him like he were _fragile..._ only Thomas couldn't find it in him to feel affronted. It wasn't pitying, somehow. Not like it'd be from anybody else. 

"Five years. I think."

Richard nodded, considering.

"Er, there was somebody – somebody I liked," loved, "since," and before, "but he was – he… "

"Didn't feel the same."

"Wasn't _like_ us." 

Talking about it still put a pang in his stomach: he'd grown up since Jimmy'd left. He was over it. But thinking much about it made him feel daft and immature: two things he'd already come off as in front of Richard, and he didn't fancy continuing to do so. Not when this could be something.

He didn't dare assume it _would_ be something…

But it could be. There was potential.

(And his mouth did more than talk, so that was nice). 

On the other hand, this was different than any way he'd… well, he'd never brought it up before, except for with that sexologist in London, another thing he wasn't keen on revisiting—although he thought Richard might understand that, too, even if he was more sure of himself than Thomas had ever been. 

The way he talked, Richard had done it the right way round: start out unsure, end up confident. 

But there was something to it, talking about it now; there was _something._

_He's not like me,_ Thomas had said then, and that had been it over and over, everybody had ended up _not like him_. Either nothing ever happened at all, as with Jimmy, or something _had,_ only for it to end and for Thomas to realise the other bloke had been pretending all along.

Pretending in which direction he couldn't ever say. But pretending, for certain.

"We're of a special kind," Richard said, gentle still. He threaded his fingers through Thomas's own and squeezed.

And _that_ was the something, right there.

He wasn't alone anymore.

"And you're right that I've… er, I've had blokes for – just a night, or not very long, and…" He really _hadn't_ talked about any of this since London, had he. Thomas shifted, uncomfortable.

He felt sort of like he was naked.

Richard said, "no shame in cruising, Mr Barrow."

_Isn't there, though?_

"Look, I know what it must've looked like, but I haven't done that much."

With his other hand Richard went to the button of his jacket and almost undid it, his fingers twisting. Thomas didn't know why he couldn't tear his eyes away.

He wished they were still smoking.

"Not since the war," he added. Much. He wasn't going to pretend he hadn't done it at all, in the years that had passed… but he never had done it _before_ the war. Hadn't needed to. Men used to fall into his lap without him lifting a finger. "I'm not the sort of bloke who – "

"Can't imagine there are many places for it in Downton," interrupted Richard, even, steelly almost. "If you were."

They were still holding hands, but he wouldn't meet Thomas's eyes, and – 

Oh.

_He's embarrassed._

_You've embarrassed him, you ass._

"Yeah, well, I only meant I," Thomas started, hasty. He huffed, took a breath, but it seemed as if it got stuck in his mouth and didn't make it all the way to his lungs. Worthless. "I don't get out much, do I."

"So you've said."

That smile wasn't quite so at ease as the others.

He was still fidgeting with his clothing. It must've been years since he'd waited at table, all the bad habits this man had…

"The Crawleys aren't in good shape," Thomas blurted, and Richard tilted up his head and just _looked_ at him. "Financially, I mean. So nobody's coming for dinner much."

"'Til now."

That face was… Better. On the right track again. Soon enough he'd be beaming, if Thomas played his cards right, and he would; he couldn't afford to upset him.

Not when he wanted more so badly.

"Yeah."

"Country houses are all islands, these days, I reckon."

Bloody felt like it.

"Plenty like the Abbey," Richard went on, casual. "And plenty going on pretending it's the old days—the untitled, mostly. When you've got it all liquid you can play like it's 1850."

"If it's liquid it can run out," Thomas said, argumentative without knowing why. 

"Or spill over," he said gaily. "But yeah, the Granthams aren't the only ones in bad shape... more and more we find the well's dried up."

Thomas had come across those. The worst ones in Yorkshire, probably, the ones with crumbling façades and dusty banisters, cobwebbed corners and fading wallpaper, empty of everything but Lord Or Sir Somebody keen on going about life as if there hadn't been a war and a depression. He didn't much like to think of Downton ever ending up in such a state, even if he didn't intend to spend the rest of his life there, neither…

But where else could he possibly go?

"You've been to a few this summer, haven't you," he said eventually.

A nod. "But you're the last," with a half-smile, now. "Saved the best for it."

_Flirt._

"...if you're meaning to distract me from your love stories, Mr Barrow, you'll not be successful."

"Love stories," Thomas scoffed. "What'd I just bloody say – "

"You'll figure out how to put the right spin on it in due time," Richard interrupted. Now he was smiling. Figured that was how it went. "What's it leave, if you're not going and nobody's coming?"

Well, that was the question, wasn't it… Maybe Thomas had forgotten how to hide his feelings from his face, because Richard seemed to know every single bloody thought that crossed his mind before he'd even gotten his head around it himself. He was looking at him much too closely for comfort again, assessing, and Thomas said, "well," for lack of anything better, almost looked away from him but found his resolve at the last second.

Richard nodded, as though he'd said something worth agreeing with.

He let go, then, set his hands behind him and leaned back, tilting his up at the sky, and Thomas was staring—at the way the moonlight hit the angles in his face the stretch of his neck, the ever-so-slight lift of his Adam's apple, and then he was looking at him again, and— 

"Upstairs or down?" he asked, with a roguish grin.

That was what it left, all right…

Thomas gave in.

"The one I mentioned," he started, slow, "the one who – "

"The normal one."

"They're all normal," Thomas snapped.

He took it in stride. "Not all the way, though, sounds like."

Only Thomas figured either you were or you weren't, and anybody who thought otherwise was probably just pretending... 

He just didn't entirely know which way was which, when it came to certain blokes. 

"He was downstairs," Thomas mumbled. "Footman." 

"This was within the last five years," said Richard, with his eyebrows raised, all cocky and coy as if Thomas didn't know exactly what he was getting at.

"I, er, had about ten years on him."

It really shouldn't have been so hard to say—happened all the time, didn't it, everybody he'd slept with at age twenty had been at least a few years older (usually more than)—but it _was._ It was different on their end of it, men in… not quite the middle of their lives, he dared hope, but not young anymore neither, only he knew what Richard was probably thinking and he wasn't _one of those—_

"How old are you, exactly?"

Clearly it _had_ been what he was getting at, though.

"Thirty six," Thomas said, doing his best not to sound as offended as he was by the question.

Richard cocked his head at him. "Same as me."

"Is that so hard to believe?"

Richard laughed at him, and if it weren't fast becoming Thomas's favourite sound on the planet maybe he'd've defended himself, but…

He ended up laughing, himself, instead, and then he put his hands to his face and huffed. He felt childish, with Richard, in the bad and good ways alike, a combination of young-and-stupid and young-and-carefree.

"Right," Richard said, airily, "I'm not _that sort of bloke,_ " God, he deserved that, didn't he, "but then, I don't know that you are, yourself… are you?"

As if this could get any worse… Thomas managed to uncover his eyes. He had some dignity. He wasn't going to hide through all of this. "I don't think so," he mumbled. And he didn't. He'd never wanted to be; it had just happened. You couldn't control feelings, could you?

"So what happened?" Richard asked, gaze to the sky.

"Nothing," Thomas said. "Er… nothing good. Not really."

Richard turned his face toward him again and raised his eyebrows.

Something _broke_ , seeing it. Once Thomas started talking he found he couldn't stop.


	3. Chapter 3

"...it's just when I was a boy I always wanted a… a proper _romance,_ " Thomas said. Good thing he was smoking; his nerves couldn't handle it otherwise. Fifteen years of nobody to talk to (he'd rather've died than tell another _footman_ what happened, although looking back he had at least had the decency to pass on a warning) and now it was all on Richard's shoulders. "With bloody love letters and keepsakes and, and, calling it _making love_ instead of anything else, doing it in a bed instead of – well. And…" He trailed off, but Richard nodded at him. "And, er, I thought I had that, with him, but I didn't, obviously, or I'd be valeting a bloody Duke instead of being stuck in Downton…" What was the point in still feeling frustrated about it, when it had been over so long? Why should he still be angry? He didn't _know,_ but he was, and that made it all even worse than it already was. "I haven't come anywhere near since," he said slowly. "Romance, that is." It felt very stupid to say out loud, but Richard was doing a very good job so far of convincing him that none of it really was, where his own feelings were concerned at least, so maybe he'd keep it up and Thomas wouldn't have to spend the rest of the night feeling like a fool. "And it – it's too late, now, isn't it."

"Is it?"

That look probably meant something, but Thomas didn't know if he'd do right in _believing_ it. If only he were willing to put all his cards on the table, just come out and say it.

It used to be so _easy._

Too easy. That was why he'd been hurt, after all, wasn't it?

"You can see why I'd think so," he said shortly.

"Yeah," Richard said, "yeah, I can."

He spoke so casually about it Thomas wasn't sure if he actually did or not, but he did think he was genuine in caring. At least for now.

"But even if three wasn't the charm, Mr Barrow…"

"Yeah, well, neither was four or five or anybody after, _Mr Ellis_ , and – "

"Four or five?" he interrupted.

Thomas wanted to smack the smile off his face.

He also wanted to kiss it off, so to avoid doing either he held the cigarette in his mouth and shut his eyes and tried not to think about it.

"I don't think it is," said Richard, noncommittal. Couldn't care either way. And why should he have? "And better late than never, isn't it?"

"I don't know," Thomas confessed, "I don't… maybe I don't deserve to…"

Baring his soul to a man he met three days ago.

That wasn't like him. He didn't enjoy baring his soul to _anybody,_ never had, but—

But it had been nice, driving, and talking, and what they'd done in between, and Richard had _gotten him out of jail_ —a lot had already happened for one night, and he was understanding and listening like nobody ever had been or did, and Thomas wanted to grab him and never let go. Telling him everything made him feel like he was doing that at the same time as it made him feel like – like he was chasing him out with a shotgun.

Only he hadn't gone anywhere yet… and he seemed willing to stick around.

Til the next morning, at least.

"Maybe I don't deserve it," he said. "Hasn't exactly gone well in the past, has it, and the only thing they've all got in common is _me,_ and – and – "

"And?"

Thomas paused. "And… er, that's all."

Richard only looked at him, scrutiny in his eyes. "Is it?"

_Really._

"Everybody deserves a bit of love in their lives, Mr Barrow."

"What's so hard about calling me my Christian name?"

He faltered. His legs shifted; he looked away—back behind him, as if he were checking if somebody was there. "Nothing," he said after a moment, soft. "Nothing at all."

"Then why don't you?"

Richard raised his eyebrows. "I like to be polite," he said airily, and in a way that made Thomas sure that that wasn't the whole story. "But I'll do my best, if it keeps you talking."

"I've _been_ talking."

"And I'd like to hear more."

Thomas huffed.

The things he hadn't shared didn't seem worth sharing, to him, but since he asked...

"I told you about Lady Sybil?"

"Yeah."

The last person he'd sat on the roof with.

"After she died," Thomas murmured, "er, it had been a year, and when Mr Crawley went – "

Fuck, there was a lot he had to say for any of this to make sense, wasn't there.

"Er, I should tell you about him, first, I think..."

So he did, slicing open his chest and baring his soul all over again.

It was funny in a way. That he'd gone so long not breathing a word about anything to anybody and now he was handing it over all at once to a man he'd just met and didn't know very much at all about—funny and pathetic and quite daft, really. He knew why it was. He'd always been bad at sharing: either he didn't want to at all or he wanted to far more than was good for him, and the latter was what all this was. Dumping the contents of his brain and his heart out all over the place and letting Richard pick them up. 

What could he do with any of it? Why should he want to hold any of it at all?

He'd already made it clear he could put up with more foolishness than the average person, not that Thomas was very interested in pressing on the matter. And he seemed interested… asking questions, listening, bringing up his own past a few places but not in a way that was even about him, really, just in a way that made Thomas feel as if he wasn't the only person in the world who'd ever had to live through heartbreak of the kind he'd had.

And he was surprised about some of it, about Mr Crawley especially, less so Branson… though he'd not even batted an eyelash about Philip. 

It didn't bother Thomas that he was. Not with how it came off from him: if anything it gave him a lift.

_Yes, your life has been strange,_ it told him.

_No, none of this is normal…_

_It doesn't always have to be as it's been._

"It doesn't," repeated Richard. "You've been dealt a sorry hand, Thomas."

He sort of regretted making such a point of him using his Christian name, because now every time he did he felt a thrill down his spine and warmth in his cheeks like a fucking schoolgirl.

"But how much time have I got left to fix it, even?"

"It's your past," Richard told him. "It doesn't need fixing, and you couldn't truly even if it did… that's the nature of time, isn't it?"

But the idea of it not needing fixing _at all_...

"You can make amends, of course."

The words had him bristling. "I didn't say I wanted to do that."

Richard laughed. "Then don't," he said. "But in my eye you have a better time of it if you look forward, not back."

"Forward to what," Thomas muttered.

"You'll find out soon enough…"

Thomas didn't expect the kiss but he was by no means going to refuse it. It was all too easy just to let him, after all, so why shouldn't he, if he wanted it, too? Richard knew what he was doing, surely. He meant what he was getting at, with the faint scrape of his teeth and all he did with his tongue, how he put his body close to him, his fingers spread at his thigh and exacting gradual pressure as he took Thomas's lower lip between his own, kissing him without letting him kiss back, and as soon as he tried Richard broke it, but not properly: he only moved to the corner of Thomas's mouth, and then his cheek, the corner of his jaw, his hand still a warm weight on his knee— 

He put his lips to Thomas's ear and whispered, "more of that, perhaps."

The fact that he very clearly intended to be charming and compelling and captivating did not stop Thomas at all from feeling charmed, compelled and captivated, even though it bloody well should have.

"If you let it happen," Richard went on, and as he sat back he was grinning, again with that glint in his eye.

Thomas felt as if he might swoon.

"I think there's more to it than that," he said after a moment, beating the feeling down.

"Well, it takes two, of course."

"Which means you've got to have two to begin with, haven't you?"

"What do we make, then? One and a half?"

Thomas saw his chance and took it—it wasn't his best habit, avoiding the things that came too close by opting for kisses and affection instead, but he wasn't as rusty in it as he'd have guessed.

It had been long, but maybe not _that_ long.

Which was what Richard was saying, wasn't it?

At the very least he had the rest of the night to pretend to be a lover, and if Richard wanted that from him then he was going to get it, because for a very long time not even _pretending_ had been an option.

As they parted Richard murmured, "most houses the butler sleeps separate from everybody else." Thomas blinked. "By the pantry."

"How would you know?"

"It's standard," he said, a twinkle in his eye, lips quirked at the corners. Amused. "But then, not much about this place is… least of all you."

Least of all…

"Why are you telling me this, Mr Ellis?"

Playing at being coy wasn't going to get him far here; he could tell that, but he didn't need it to get him _far_. He knew what we wanted, and unlike it had been before, he knew for certain he was wanted back—maybe not for long, maybe just for a night, but it was _him_ that was wanted and he was wanted for reasons that weren't really about losing or finding anybody else, they were just about… him, himself. At the moment Richard Ellis seemed set on wanting Thomas Barrow, specifically.

Who knew how things would turn out, in the morning?

But he was wanted now, that was the difference.

"I don't know, Mr Barrow," answered Richard, grinning. "Why might I be concerned with the location of your bed, d'you think?"

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr as [@combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com)!


End file.
